NEW states list puzzle- an experiment

With the states list puzzle still grinding on without a solution, I’ve been wondering about the solvability of this puzzle- it appears that personal knowledge of the puzzle setter is required, from posts on the subject made elsewhere.

I’ve decided to construct my own states list puzzle, as much for the enjoyment of fellow Dopers as to see how quickly a fair version of this kind of puzzle can be solved.

I believe the puzzle is fair. I think it will be solved by somebody here, reasonably quickly. It requires no personal knowledge of me. The answer is available on the Internet.

Again, the puzzle is to explain the ordering of the US states. The answer will be of the form ‘This is the order in which <a certain thing happened> <with a certain proviso>’.

As we’re up to 27 states in the other puzzle, I’ll give you the same number of states in mine. I will add more states, and provide more information, depending on how this pans out.


1 .Oregon
2 .Washington
3 .Idaho
4 .Montana
5 .North Dakota
6 .South Dakota
7 .Minnesota
8 .Iowa
9 .Nebraska
10.Missouri
11.Illinois
12.Indiana
13.Kentucky
14.West Virginia
15.Virginia
16.Tennessee
17.North Carolina
18.South Carolina
19.Wyoming
20.Colorado
21.Kansas
22.Oklahoma
23.New Mexico
24.Texas
25.Louisiana
26.California
27.Nevada

the order in which these states were mentioned on the SDMB

Just a WAG, not sure what your proviso might be…

No, The Great Unwashed, that’s not it.

I don’t know the answer, but I can make the following observation:
Except for two cases (South Carolina -> Wyoming and Louisiana -> California), each two consecutive states on the list share a common border.
The first 18 seem to follow a west-to-east path, and the next seven follow a approximate north-to south path.

Maybe this will help someone solve this.

Where does Wyoming border South Carolina

It doesn’t, and neither does Louisiana border California.
The two cases I gave were the exceptions to the rule.

Time for some more states, then:

28.Utah
29.Mississippi
30.Alabama
31.Florida
32.Georgia
33.Arkansas
34.Wisconsin
35.Michigan

States where the ISS was directly overhead?